Enchantment

An Enchantment is "A spell that causes a positive effect for a period of time (e.g., speed, increased armor, increased Energy)."

This boost can be an increase in armor, a reduction in Energy cost or even turning damage inflicted into healing. It is usually easy to tell who has an enchantment cast on them since they all have a cloudy white ring around their middle torso, with a revolving icon indicating the profession of the caster, as well as a golden up-arrow at the end of their health bar and the enchantment's skill icon surrounded by a yellow border in the player's Effects Monitor. Characters enchanted with Death Nova are also surrounded by a distinctive green ring of fumes and sparkles.

Enchantments placed on a target will last for a specific time (like Aura of Restoration), until a condition is met (like Illusion of Weakness) or will last as long as the caster is willing to maintain the upkeep cost of -1 pips of energy regeneration (like Life Barrier). The exception is that maintained enchantments will end if the distance between the enchanted target and the caster ever becomes greater than the radar range.

Some effects trigger when an enchantment ends. These effects will trigger if an enchantment's duration expires or if the enchantment is removed, but they will not trigger if an enchantment is overwritten by another copy of the same enchantment.

Enchantment Stacking

As a basic rule, you can't have multiple copies of the same enchantment active, but you can have multiple enchantments of several types active at once.

Regarding maintained enchantments: When an ally casts a maintained enchantment on a target and other allies cast the same maintained enchantment on the same target, the following happens:

The enchantment ends when all maintainers stop maintaining it, or when an enchantment removing spell destroys it, in that case all maintainers stop maintaining it.

The enchantment effect on the target is determined by the stats of the maintainer with the highest attribute investment i.e. when two players cast Life Barrier on a target, one reducing damage by 50% and the other by 52%, damage on target is reduced by 52%.

The enchantment effect on casters works for each caster independently; thus Essence Bond will give energy to everyone who maintains it on a target when the target is being hit, and Life Bond will damage everyone maintaining it when the target is hit, but each maintainer's damage is reduced by the amount which is determined by his investment in Protection Prayers.

The end effect of a maintained enchantment can trigger multiple times if multiple people cast it on the same target.

Unmaintained enchantments work similarly:

When two copies of the same enchantment are cast on a target, the duration is reset to the higher duration of the two; either to the remaining duration of the already active enchantment, or to the longer duration of the new enchantment.

When a weaker enchantment is cast over a stronger enchantment, the effect of the stronger enchantment lasts as long as the stronger enchantment lasts.

Whirling Charge you move and attack 25% faster, but ends immediately if not enchanted.

Notes

The Guild Wars Prophecies manual describes Nature Rituals as "environmental enchantments", and some Ritual-related error messages refer to the effects of Nature Rituals as "global enchantments", however the game mechanics do not treat them as enchantments.